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Alaskan Cyclotron - Not in My Backyard!
j-beda writes "Wired reports that "Albert Swank Jr., a 55-year-old civil engineer in Anchorage, Alaska, is a man with a mission. He wants to install a nuclear particle accelerator in his home." To be used to create medically useful isotopes, and even though some of the neighbours are supportive, opponents "compared potential damage from a cyclotron mishap to the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident" though an expert says "Probably the worst thing that could happen with small cyclotrons is that the operator might electrocute themselves." It looks like the Anchorage Assembly plans to hold an public hearing on December 20 to determine whether Swank will be permitted to install the device."
Local lawmakers rushed to introduce emergency legislation banning the use of cyclotrons in home businesses. State health officials took similar steps, and have suspended Swank's permit to operate cyclotrons on his property.
This the same lawmakers who wanted a A bridge to nowhere costing $941 Million?
the sig
This is just people being stupid. Also the reason they dropped 'Nuclear' from NMRI.
How do I get one installed in MY home? While it doesnt have the style points of being able to say "You do realise each one of us has an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on our backs?", it certainly would be a conversation peice ;-)
Plenty of people do stupid shit in their garden sheds, thats what they are there for!
:)
I have read about a kid building a reactor from smoke detectors, and the NZ guy who built his own cruise missile.
I sense a business opportunity for lead lined garden housing
Also, didn't Young Einstein manage to split the beer atom in his? (and with a hammer and chisel if I remember rightly)
liqbase
Dr Ray Stantz: You know, it just occurred to me that we really haven't had a successful test of this equipment.
Dr. Egon Spengler: I blame myself.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So do I.
Dr Ray Stantz: Well, no sense in worrying about it now.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.
These things are not toys. They make prompt and residual radiation. It's made to transmute elements into radioactive forms. Concern is not unreasonable.
.max
Again: this machine will be used to make radioisotopes. Short half lives or not, the proximal homowners have a legitamite reason to be concerned about a radioisotope factory next to their homes. What about contamination issues?
2: It is reasonable to have some concern about shielding. Anything energetic enough to make radionuclides can also make X-rays by the assload. Given that we're talking nuclear transmutation, a concern about neutron radiation (fairly long ranged and not stopped by standard rad shielding).
ASS-U-Ming the installation will be industry standard, there shouldn't be a problem. If this guy doesn't know what he's doing, he could cause problems. Given that nobody seems to know what his specific shielding and radcon/exposure control plan is... he screwed up by not getting preapproved in advance.
FWIW, i have run a re-tasked SDI helium-3 RFQ PET accelerator, and currently run the Tevatron, have manufactured antiprotons for the last 7 years send the Giant NuMI Neutrino beam from Fermilab to Minnesota, so i have a clue.
Let us rise above our usu. cynical smirking condescencion and allow as how the loi polloi have a legit concern in this instance.
It's all about risk.
What risk? Oh, wait, you mean the risk that the crackpots that the "opposition" digs up saying that a cyclotron could blow all of alaska to kingdom come could actually be right?
Look, I know people talk about bias and shit, and how everyone should listen to "both sides" of every argument, but didn't it occur to you that sometimes the other side is just plain wrong?
At least this fella can stick a sign out the front... "Gone Fission"....
I'll show myself out.
Farnsworth: "So what are you doing to protect my constitutional right to bear doomsday devices?"
NRA Guy: "Well, first off, we're gonna get rid of that three day waiting period for mad scientists."
Farnsworth: "Damn straight! Today the mad scientist can't get a doomsday device, tomorrow it's the mad grad student! Where will it end?!"
NRA Guy: "Amen, brother. I don't go anywhere without my mutated anthrax. For duck huntin'."
This story made me think of this. Am I the only one?
Flash is the Herpes of the Internet.
your.opinion >
What's the problem? He installs a helipad without getting approval, you install an anti-aircraft battery without getting approval. These things have a way of sorting themselves out.
I was a Nuclear Power Technician in the US Navy. The week I arrived in Idaho for prototype training at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, scientists and nuclear engineers arrived from around the world to recreate TMI. INEL has about 200 nuclear reactors of all sizes and ages. They were all built for research purposes. They had one that they felt was similiar enough to the TMI reactor for their purposes. They recreated the conditions of TMI and let the reactor go to see just how bad it could have gotten. The result? As predicted, the nuclear reaction stopped when all the water was gone, there was some core damage due to residual heat. But that was it. No catastrophic melt down. No failure of the primary reactor vessel, no breach of secondary shielding. No measurable (ie higher than natural background) radiation levels were ever measured outside the fence at Three Mile Island. I don't minimize the emotions of the people who lived in the area at the time. Their fears were real. But those fears were a result of purposely inadequate education of the general public about nuclear science by the Government. It is much easier to protect a "secret" if no one understands what you are talking about.
I work in medicine. A cyclotron is just simply a big circular magnet. Electrocution from the power driving the magnets is the most dangerous thing possible, IMHO. Sheilding in the area where the drugs are bombarded by the machine to create the isotopes is quite adequate. Handeling procedures in place for these drugs and machines used in their production by the FDA, NRC, & other medical oversite organizations is very extensive. Here are just a few drugs off the top of my head that are used commonly that have short useful working span: Technetium-99m has a half-life of 6 hours. Fludeoxyglucose has a half-life of 109.8 minutes. C-11 methionine has a half-life of 20 minutes. ...and the list goes on.
Many drugs used in diagnosis & treatment of cancers & other ailments require an on-site cyclotron because of the short half-life. It is not possibly to make these drugs in the lower states & fly them to Alaska in a timely mannor for them to be effective for dianosis and/or treatment.
What this gentelman wants to do is needed & I commend him for trying to help others.The people who are against him building this thing are not very well informed.
"This is America... where the will of the few outweigh the outrage of the many..." - Unknown